Wednesday, when Sterling went from over-the-top belligerence on the witness stand to calling his wife Shelly a “pig,” I heard giggling about the spectacle, and read chuckling web headlines, news stories emphasizing the courtroom “drama,” and glib summations on Twitter. L.A.’s best-known sports columnist contrasted the Sterlings’ marriage with the McCourts’, cracking that “at least Frank never compared Jamie to livestock.” On the website of normally dignified KPCC radio, readers were invited to try taking the Alzheimer’s test that doctors gave to Sterling, as if it were the “Sunday Puzzle.”

We’re making sport of a sick man.

Do we know for sure that Sterling, 80, is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease? No, but the neurologist hired by Shelly Sterling to examine her husband testified this week that it’s “likely.”

Anyway, since when is it OK to make fun of people who may be in mental or physical decline, pending 100 percent proof of their precise medical condition? You don’t treat your uncle that way, or the woman talking to herself in the mall.

This is not a defense of Donald Sterling. He’s the worst sports-team owner ever in Southern California. The National Basketball Association should have taken the Clippers away from him long before revelations about racist comments drew attention to his mean and miserly business practices, and raised questions about his mental state.

It’s a defense of anybody suffering from dementia. It appears Sterling is among the one-third of seniors who, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, die with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia.